The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University invites scholars, practitioners, innovators and others committed to understanding and remedying institutional corruption to submit proposals to join our community.

Background: The Edmond J. Safra Research Lab is currently in the third year of a five-year project on institutional corruption. We are concerned with widespread or systematic practices that undermine the integrity of an institution or public trust in an institution. Unlike more frequently studied examples of individual corruption (such as bribery), institutional corruption tends to involve practices that are legal. For our purposes, “institution” refers to public and private professions and organizations such as medicine, government, academia, law, regulatory agencies, and business.

Purpose: The aim of the Lab is to study institutional corruption with both an empirical and normative focus. The empirical research project will explore whether and when institutional corruption exists. The normative project will work to develop remedies and tools to address institutional corruption when it is found to exist.

The cross-disciplinary format of the Lab is designed to foster an innovative research environment where fellows are encouraged to weave their ideas into a broader framework, while also being a resource for each other. The Lab fellows vary based on methodological approach and topic of focus. Past fellows have included postdoctoral fellows, journalists, professors, doctors, students, writers, and technologists. Their projects focus on a variety of institutions, including Congress, academia, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical industry (among others) on topics ranging from campaign finance reform to conflicts of interest to data monitoring systems in open government. Research from the Lab is conducted with future real-world applications in mind. As the project evolves, the Lab aims to release databases, guidelines and other tools to the public that work towards solving the problem of institutional corruption in a variety of contexts.

Eligibility: A broad range of researchers, scholars, and professionals are invited to submit proposals to the Lab, either to become fellows, or to propose joint or collaborative research projects. The Lab accepts a number of fellows every year who are engaged in research and practice addressing institutional corruption. Research applicants may be from the fields of law, medicine, economics, psychology, sociology, business, public policy, though those from other disciplinary homes will also be considered. Practice applicants may come from industry, government, or the nonprofit sector.

For the 2012-13 academic year, the Lab would be particularly enthusiastic to receive proposals on topics of institutional corruption in media and think tanks, or from professionals working in those fields. Priority will be given to proposals with a focus on innovative remedies for institutional corruption.

Faculty are invited to participate and postdoctoral applicants are also encouraged, as well as proposals from professionals in media, industry or government seeking sabbatical time to pursue research directly relevant to the project, and others from data-driven fields such as designers, programmers, and statisticians.

Deadline: The deadline date for receipt of applications for fellowships and projects beginning September 2012 is February 1, 2012.

Further details about the Lab and procedures for submitting an application are available on our website: